Body Heat
(1981)
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Body Heat makes no effort to hide its indebtedness to noir tradition. Ned Racine (William Hurt) is a lazy, womanizing lawyer who works in a small town in Florida. In the midst of a terrible heat wave, he accidentally meets Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner). a rich married woman from a nearby suburb. A steamy affair quickly develops. Soon enough. Matty has convinced Ned to murder her husband so they can be together (and rich) forever-and to think it’s his idea. After the murder, Ned gets double-crossed in various ways. discovering he was picked out and set up by Matty from the very beginning. After Matty fakes her own death, Ned is sent to jail. where he does some research and learns that she had actually taken on another woman’s identity. But it’s too late to do anything. The last shot shows Matty sunbathing on an anonymous tropical island. Besides the archetypal noir plot, in which a sexy mystery woman embroils a likeable, attractive but immoral male protagonist and brings him down, Body Heat is characteristically noirish in its rapid and super-snappy dialogue, and in its depiction of a femme fatale who is untrustworthy but enchanting nonetheless. Over time, positive response to Kasdan’s film has won out, with subsequent neonoirs (such as Blood Simple [1984] and The Last Seduction [1994]) paying homage to Body Heat, much as Body Heat pays tribute to noirs such as Double Indemnity (1944) and Out of the Past (1947). But there is also a subversive quality to Body Heat, which moves it away from classical noir. It is closer to the so-called erotic thriller. What was left implicit and suggestive in the earlier films is here foregrounded and made the visual focus. The extended soft-core sex scenes between Hurt and Turner are shocking and risque even by today’s more promiscuous standards. —Steven Jay Schneider (1001) While scoring high-profile credits as a screenwriter (including "The Empire Strikes Back", "Return of the Jedi", and "Raiders of the Lost Ark"), Lawrence Kasdan made his directorial debut with this steamy, contemporary film noir in the tradition of "Double Indemnity" and other classics from the 1940s. In one of his most memorable roles, William Hurt plays a Florida lawyer unwittingly drawn into a web of deceit spun by Kathleen Turner (in her screen debut) as a married socialite who plots to kill off her husband with Hurt's assistance. Kasdan's dialogue is a hoot (sometimes it borders on satire), and the sultry atmosphere is a perfect complement to the perspiration-soaked chemistry between Hurt and Turner, whose love scenes caused quite a stir when the film was released in 1981. John Barry's score sets the provocative mood, and both Ted Danson and Mickey Rourke are splendid in memorable supporting roles. "—Jeff Shannon" |
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